A young boy sleeping on the bed shivers from the cold, he bends his back and lifts his legs trying to sleep in a fetal position to warm himself. The position did not help as he slowly opens his eyes, he sees swords and shields hanging on the wall and a candle below them on the wooden table illuminating the room. He opens his eyes wide and quickly gets up throwing the drowsiness out of his mind. The boy panickily looks around at the unfamiliar environment and before he can think about it the door slams open behind him.
“You are awake!!” A woman in her early twenties rushes towards him carrying some clothes with her.
The boy turned around to look at the woman as he was mesmerized by her silvery voice. The woman wore a long blue cloth which was similar to the 16th century european dress for peasants woman. Her black hair was untied and it reached till her lower back, her skin fair and tender with a hint of reddish on her cheeks. Sweat trickled down from her forehead running past her deep blue eyes and hanging at the tip of her pointed nose. He stared at her face until she stood right in front of him. She looked nervously at him before asking.
“Is everything okay? Are you in pain?”
“I am okay... See.” The boy stops mid-way as he notices that he is without clothes. He panickily covers his private parts and slowly moves towards the bed trying to hide himself with the bed frame.
The woman looks at him in confusion but moves forward to hand him the clothes in her hand. He quickly grabs the clothes and looks at the woman, waiting for her to turn around. The woman oblivious of his gesture sits at the chair besides the table staring at him.
Who is she and why is she staring at me?
The boy unfolds the dress in his hands and sees a simple black pant and a black shirt. He searches for an underwear, but he finds none. He peeks at the woman and sees no intention from her to give him privacy. He quickly gets dressed and slowly makes his way to the empty chair in front of the woman but as soon as he sits down the woman gets up.
Is something wrong with her? Why is she acting like a maniac?
Before he could ask her something, he feels a tickling sensation in his head. It felt like thousands of insects crawling inside his brain. There was no pain but it was something that couldn’t be ignored either. He tried to rub it off but it was no use, after a minute the sensation disappeared and it brought back his memories, he remembered the incident of his suicide. He quickly got up from the chair and stared at the woman, “Where am I?”
The woman frightened by his sudden aggression tries to back away, but she stumbles on the leg of the chair and trips. The boy rushes forward and grabs her, their eyes meet. The boy had a curious look whereas the woman had fear.
“Please, I didn’t mean to be here.” The woman begged with tears in her eyes while her body shivered uncontrollably.
He pulled her up and gently stepped back, he tried to speak as soft as he could not to frighten her again, “Don’t worry. I won’t harm you.”
He pointed on the bed and gestured her to sit on it. The woman looked at him and nodded before going towards the bed.
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I should be dead. What is happening here? Greg must have brought me here.
“Do you happen to know where Greg is?”
“Greg, I don’t know who that is?” She looked at him with unease and fear like a child waiting for a punishment after doing something wrong.
He pulls a chair and sits in front of her, he could clearly see that the woman was afraid of his presence, so he tried to look as friendly as possible and the only way to do that was to smile. He gave her the best smile that he could. There was awkward silence in the room as he tried to come up with questions to ask her whereas she remained on the bed motionless.
How can I be so stupid? I should ask her name.
A sudden sharp pain stabs his stomach, moving towards the heart of the young man but the pain did not stop there as it made its ways towards the brain. Before he could react a throbbing pain inside his brain nearly made him collapse. The pain lasted just few seconds and it disappeared completely but the information that he got made him open his mouth subconsciously.
I…I.. am alive.
He gets up and punches the air while yelling, “Mother fuck, I get to live again.”
The excitement and the punch frightens the woman, she quickly rushes to the corner of the bed while trembling. The boy quickly retracts his fists and looks at her with pity as he now knows the reason to why this pretty woman is so afraid of him. He slowly makes his way towards her, every step he takes forward makes the woman tremble more violently. He kneels and embraces her delicately, like holding the most fragile glass.
“Lara don’t cry. Forgive me for doing all those horrible things to you.” He whispers in her ears. She struggles but he hold on and slowly the trembling stops, and she starts sobbing, within few minutes she falls asleep.
He lays her down on the bed and covers her with blanket, he then proceeds to sit on the chair while thinking about how he got here. He is not Lev anymore as he somehow ended up inside a sixteen-year-old boy named Rex. Maybe science could freeze his brain and wake him up in the future, but he knows that he is not in earth anymore. He is in a completely different planet named Verus, it has got fucking three moons. It also has something not found in earth, some stuff called mana that let’s you do superhuman or you could say god human things.
Lara shifts her body which disrupts his thoughts, he looks at her and sighs while shaking his head. He is in dilemma on what to do with her as she happens to be his wife. He gets angry at himself or his past self for treating her in such inhumane way.
Rex was an orphan that was taken in by the village chief at the age of six, he never took him as a son but as a helper to manage his house and be a friend for his daughter Lara. She is four years older than him and they grew up happily without any problems that is until last year. The village chief suffered from a disease that took his life, Lara almost spent all their savings to help her father, but it was no use. Before he died the chief made them marry each other and told them to leave the village and go somewhere else. Rex didn’t want to marry her, but he could not deny as he owed the village chief his life. They got married but there was one problem as they did not have the money to move, this made them stay which caused the downfall of their marriage.
The villagers believed in patriarchal society and they followed a tradition where the man had to marry a woman younger than him to be respected. Rex was younger than Lara which made the villagers view him as incompetent. He also did not have control over mana whereas Lara was a water mage, all these factors made Rex frustrated and he began to vent his anger on his wife. Every night he punched and kicked her sometimes he even used sticks and metals to beat her. Lara suffered everyday for the past year and the only reason she stayed with him was because of her father’s last wish.
They don’t even meet at day time as Lara goes to hunt for beasts in the forest while he spends his time in the brothel. Lara did not go hunting today as Rex got in a fight yesterday where he injured his head and went in a coma. She took care of him the whole night which made her exhausted, so tired that she fell asleep in the arms of the man that hurt her.